Recorded November 2023
Outside the US Capitol during 2023 Stars of Life, Prodigy’s Rob Lawrence caught up with American Ambulance Association Immediate Past President Shawn Baird. Shawn shared next steps following the last meeting of the Ground Ambulance Patient and Billing Advisory Committee.
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Thank you to American Ambulance Association Secretary @WayneJurecki for standing up for patients and #EMS providers. @NewsHour #SupportEMS #GAPBAC #AlwaysOpen #NotJustaRide https://t.co/L982QAYr3X @EMS1 @jemsconnect @UKROBL1 @AIMHI_MIH @EMSWorldOFCL
— AmericanAmbulanceAsc (@amerambassoc) August 24, 2023
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From FAIR Health in February 2022
“Currently, no federal law protects consumers against “surprise” bills from out-of-network ground ambulance providers. Some state and local governments regulate ground ambulance surprise billing practices; however, such laws may not apply to all health plans or ambulance providers in an area. Because of the substantial policy interest in ground ambulance services, FAIR Health drew on its vast database of private healthcare claims to illuminate multiple aspects of such services across the nation, including utilization, costs, age, gender, diagnoses and differences across states.”
The Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Labor, and the U.S. Treasury Department (Departments) have issued an Interim Final Rule (IFR) on “surprise billing” that will take effect September 13, 2021. However, the Departments are taking comments on the IFR. While the Congress expressly excluded ground ambulance organizations from the statute that the IFR seeks to implement, the Departments have included a prohibition on balance billing for nonemergency ground ambulance transports that occur after a patient has been stabilized in a facility.
The Congress established an Advisory Committee to consider the best way to address balance billing in the context of ground ambulance services, and the Departments should wait to be advised by that group before subjecting nonemergency ground ambulance transports to the broader balancing billing prohibition.
It is important that the Departments hear from as many stakeholders as possible opposing this expansion of the law. To help you develop a comment letter, we provided the following template that we ask you to tailor to your experience and organization. Tailored letters will be of greater value to the Department as they consider the rules. At a minimum, please customize the templated language to insert information about who you are and where you operate.
The must be submitted by September 7, 2021.
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